Translate

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Remind - A Great School Year Begins with a Great Communication System

For the last few years, several teachers have used Remind 101 to communicate with students and their parents.

Recently, Remind 101 has had a makeover and they are now just referred to as Remind. With the new name, also come some great features!

What is Remind?

Remind is a simple communication system for you to use with a group of people. Of course, teachers use it with students (over the age of 13) and their parents to communicate the important info about their classroom.

Parents or students sign up by using a code that they text in to the Remind system's number. They are then set to receive notifications by the teacher. It's that simple. All the teacher has to do is send a message out from the Remind App on their phone, or the Remind website.Why use it?

So you may be thinking, "Okay, well I have all of their emails and phone numbers, why do I need to use Remind to communicate?"

Here are my responses:
1. How many emails have you sent out to parents that have never been read by them? They are like the rest of us, your email most likely got lost in the pile of junk mail, and if it was read by them, it was too late.
2. How many of your students or parents, do you want to give your personal number to? My personal answer on that is zero.

By using Remind to send text notifications to your parents and students, you are increasing the likelihood that they will actually read the message sent, and you are keeping your own personal cell info private. It truly is a win-win for all stakeholder's involved.

Chat

Remind has a Chat feature that is controllable by the teacher. If they would like, they can turn chat on, and students/parents can respond to the notifications sent by the teacher. This conversation will only be seen by that teacher and that specific student. The conversation is also logged in the Remind system for documentation of the conversation. The teacher can set up "office hours" for the chat. This gives total control to the teacher as to when the chats can occur.

I would personally set up a separate remind group for parents to sign up for than students, this way you have control over setting these chat settings up for each group separately.

With the new school year upon us, now is the perfect time to set up a communication system like Remind!

(These are solely the opinions of this Blog Writer - Remind has not given compensation of any form for the publication of this Blog article)

1 comment:

The way I see it, this app could help both parents and teachers in many ways. You could use it to inform parents of their child's progress in school or help out students with a homework problem. Lots of possibilities.